In the UK you can protest anywhere, they can only disperse it if it's either an obstruction of the public or dangerous.

Marches however require you to give details of the march route to the police ahead of time so they can be safely policed, they're a bit different to stationary protests and cause a variety of logistical issues.

Does this law effectively do this? Or is it simply blanketing protests? The devil is in the details, sensationalism messes up any chance of really deciding whether this is ok or not.

I guess it should be the entire population via voting, preferably directly but practically indirectly. I think it makes sense for the majority of the population to decide where it is ok to protest instead of the protestors which given the smaller sample size, could be pretty wacky. I don't think protestors should be allowed to like, camp out on the golden gate bridge for a week unless the majorty of the people are OK with it. if the majority of the population is protesting then they could protest however they wanted to. otherwise, protestors would have to protest within limits set by the majority.

So basically, you have to tell the police ahead of time, which I think is fair enough. There is so much that potentially can go wrong, and having police prepared for a worst case isn't a terrible idea.

This law is used a lot, just Google it, and it was not pass to protect the protester, but because downtown store owner pressure it to a government that was tired of protest. There using it even if you don't get out of the park, so not only on march, but in any kind of protest assembly

Sorry to interrupt top comments but is anyone asking why or when the police can declare something to be legal or not? Of course no one is. Their job is to enforce laws, not define them. But that all gets lost and now this comment seems out of context because this whole line is based on a false premise.

Because it's just not very bloody practical to set up a jury everytime somebody decides to obstruct a major highway while "protesting" for shits and giggles. A degree of common sense is necessary for protests to be practical.

The right to assembly is a "qualified right" - you're allowed it, but if you take the piss, it can be taken away.

Discretion is a key part of modern policing - when you see somebody speeding, you either stop and have a word, or you give them a ticket. When you see somebody smoking a joint, you give them a warning or you arrest them. When you see a protest, you either make sure they protest safely, or you control it, or you disperse it. There is legislation enabling police to have that power and make those choices.

That's not the same thing as declaring something illegal. That's just discretionary execution of their authority, which is totally fine. I think KimJongIlSunglasses' point was that to declare something illegal is normally the purvue of the legislature, not the executive. Don't know much about Canadian law though.

What you're talking about is selective enforcement, which is an entirely different issue. There's no question that smoking a joint or speeding are illegal. When you do these things you've chosen to break the law, and if you do receive police attention you have no one to blame but yourself.

This is absolutely not analogous to police being able to arbitrarily define a peaceful protest as illegal. When you show up to a peaceful protest you haven't premeditated breaking the law. There's no way to predict beforehand if or when the protest will become illegal, and there's no objective standard for what makes the protest illegal.

A more appropriate analogy would be if police had the ability to arbitrarily change speed limits without changing signage, or if police could arbitrarily decide that smoking a cigarette is the same as smoking a joint.

TL;DR: Whether you're breaking the law should never be a matter of police discretion. You're either breaking it, or you're not. Whether the law is enforced may be a matter of police discretion, but that is not the same issue.

Police here in Belgium can declare a protest illegal as well. They do this when they fear they can't ensure the safety of the protestors/people around them. Sure it can lead to China-like things, but I think it's a thing really. Just depends on how you use that power.

If there is a march in support of military troops, and one idiot throws a rock, the protest will not be declared illegal. If there is a march against tuition hikes or rising unemployment or other social issues, and an idiot throws a rock, the protest will be declared illegal.

Police have the duty to protect the public. They aren't your personal army.

They come out in force, in thousands with full riot gear and have violent clashes with the anti gay crowd that heavily outnumbers them. Fights break out all over the city, with heavy destruction of property.

The police can't deal with that properly, so they decide to cancel the parade. A right decision IMO, you can't have the city descending into chaos, and canceling the event is the only way to keep order on the streets.

One of the most successful movements of the past generation has been the move towards gay equality at all levels of society, one of the most visible protests mechanisms used to move this message forward were the Pride Parades. These were all coordinated and planned utilizing the laws of each municipality were they occured. I don't believe requiring Pride Parades to submit routes is an institutional infringement on gay rights.

Show respect to the society and laws of your community and build your protest from there. It is unfortunate that there seems to be those frothing at the mouth and twisting public safety and planning issues into Orwellian restriction fantasies. These protests seem to have morphed into being about the dislike of law enforcement more than anything else to me and are now being explicitly organized to illicit a negative response and add fuel to that perception.

You stop me going where I'm going, and clog up the entire city, then I'm going to hate your organisation. I'm a pain in the ass that way, and so are many people. It's not going to be useful for the organisation or the cause.

The March on Washington during the civil rights movement was organized and the routes provided ahead of time to the proper authorities. Having tens of thousands of people walking through busy streets is a public safety issue.

The vast majority of people here have not had to live their daily lives smack dab in the middle of the Montreal protests day in and out for months on end. This amount of protesting is terribly disruptive. We are talking about shouting at 4 AM in the middle of residential streets. Not once, not twice, but weeks at a time. All this for political motives for a small percentage of the population. Political motives many do not agree with, which is all about money. Money, money, money.